A Day In The Life, or, The Many Assassinations of Pariston Hill
by readerofasaph
Summary: Everyone's out to kill Pariston and it's everyone's problem except his. Alternate summary: Pariston and Ging being domestic with the kids.


**A DAY IN THE LIFE, OR, THE MANY ASSASSINATIONS OF PARISTON HILL**

The first of the assassins arrived during breakfast on that fine summer's morning.

Pariston had been awake since 6am, emulsifying hollandaise sauce. It was his turn to cook today. Technically the household roster did not require him to prepare breakfast, only lunch and dinner; but Pariston Hill was a morning person and he took a perverse delight in expending unnecessary energy for its own sake.

That Ging Freecss hated Eggs Benedict was only a side-benefit.

As usual Gon was the first to wander into the kitchen. He'd been up since dawn and had already gone for his daily marathon run, come home, and showered. His face lit up as he sniffed the air, smelling the rich scent of warmed butter, made piquant with lemon juice and cayenne pepper.

"Good morning, Gon-kun," said Pariston, beaming, and set the boy to toasting the halved English muffins.

Killua came in a few minutes later, yawning and still dressed in undershirt and cat print pyjama bottoms. Ging didn't emerge until everyone else had finished eating, of course; Pariston made a point of beautifully plating up a serve of muffin, bacon and poached egg, drizzled with creamy yellow sauce and garnished with chives; and then leaving it on Ging's assigned placemat at the dining table, cutlery all set, in full exposure to the breeze floating gently in through the open windows.

At half past eight Ging arrived, unshaven and dishevelled (not any different from the way he looked at any other time of day), to a housefly sitting in his cold hollandaise sauce.

He chased it away by blowing on it so hard that the insect flew out the closest window in a panic. Then he grabbed a spoon and started scraping the sauce off the eggs and bacon and muffins, in order to render them edible.

"Orange juice, Ging?" offered Pariston with a winsome smile.

"No," said Ging, but because he had just shoved two bacon rashers into his mouth at once, it came out sounding like "Nnnnnnn." Pariston shrugged and poured him a glass anyway.

Interactions with Ging were convoluted enough that sometimes even Pariston himself didn't know exactly what game they were playing, or which moves and outcomes constituted wins or losses. Under such circumstances Pariston always found it best to just pick a course of action and then smile as if he'd won.

Killua began gathering the dirty plates; it was his turn to do the dishes. Gon helped him, even though Gon wasn't rostered for any chores today. Pariston leaned back in his chair to better appreciate Ging's slovenly table manners.

There was a clatter as Killua dumped a heap of knives and forks into the sink. It was only then that Pariston noticed.

There was a fifth person on the grounds of their home.

Pariston would be the first to admit that on the whole, he was a very _weak_ Triple Star Hunter in terms of his combat abilities and instincts; especially in comparison with the other three semi-regular inhabitants of this house. Furthermore, Killua always radiated a certain low-level killing intent at baseline, even if the former assassin rarely enacted murder these days; Ging always emanated killing intent when Pariston was around, which meant that foreign hostile entities were lent some degree of camouflage.

The intruder whose cloaked presence Pariston had just noticed was not yet in the house. At closest, he was in the garden, near the flowerbeds or the vegetable patch. Pariston hoped the trespasser was not in the vegetable patch, since conducting a fight there might well destroy his carefully cultivated chilli plants.

"How long has our uninvited visitor been here?" asked Pariston, looking around at the other three.

"Um," said Gon. "He was there when I got back from my run. Should I have done something about him? He didn't seem dangerous."

"Yeah, he's kind of weak," said Killua.

"He's been here for two hours." Ging swallowed the last of his poached eggs. "Though I didn't think he'd still be here when I woke up. You should go deal with him, he's obviously after you."

"How do you know he's after Pariston-san?" asked Gon.

Having Gon as part of the household certainly slowed down conversations a lot. Killua turned to Gon and explained: "With that kind of aura, our intruder's clearly out to kill someone. He's been here for two hours and hasn't made his move, which means that he realises that he's outmatched by us. But he hasn't left, which means that he still thinks he has a chance. The lousiest fighter in this house is Pariston, followed by you. But the guy didn't try to attack you when you went out alone. That means that his target is Pariston. Plus, Pariston gets hits taken out on him all the time. No one ever puts out hits on you."

"You don't have to be so insulting in your explanations," complained Gon, even though Killua always _was_. "Also, can he really defeat Pariston-san? His zetsu isn't very good."

"If only murdering Pariston were that easy," said Ging, now flicking through the morning news on his phablet. "Oi, Pariston, go clean up your own messes."

"But I'll get blood on my apron," Pariston objected. "And this pair of jeans is new."

"If your fighting technique weren't so shitty," said Ging, "you wouldn't get blood on your clothes."

"That's absolutely true, Ging," said Pariston, standing up. "Your ability to speak painful truths in a clear and forthright manner never fails to astound me."

He was on his way out the back door when he heard Ging ask, as if it had just occurred to him, "Is it my turn today to do the laundry?"

"Well obviously," said Killua. "Why else would he have caved without an argument?"

Pariston smiled, but only transiently.

The assassin was indeed lurking in the branches of an avocado tree near the vegetable patch.

The chilli plants somehow survived intact; the bok choi, however, were destroyed in entirety.

#

The house belonged to Gon, but Pariston lived there whenever he was in town.

Pariston was in town awfully often. There had been an entire argument within the Freecss family about it:

"The man is human _vermin_," Ging had warned Gon. "The fact that he's fond of you just makes it worse. He warps and twists everything he loves because it brings him pleasure."

"Why are you dating him, then?" Gon had asked.

"We're not dating," Ging replied automatically, because the denial was necessary even if nobody believed it anymore, whether it was Cheadle or the Hunter information network websites or _Ging's own son_.

Ging didn't think the two of them were together and Pariston didn't think they were together, and that was enough, surely?

"He's a fun person to have around," Gon said. "And he knows lots of things."

"_I_ know lots of things," protested Ging, because surely being the most famous archeologist in the world entitled one to some respect from one's progeny.

"Different things." Gon had shrugged.

An awful suspicion had crossed Ging's mind then, and he'd spoken before thinking, like he so unfortunately often did when it came to Gon: "He's not taking you and Killua to adult shops, is he? Because if he is then you need to make sure he tells you about gonorrhea. And genital herpes. Also the side-effects of using musk from the four-tailed civet of the Azian continent are terrible, don't even go there. But it's most important to know about genital herpes."

He'd ducked as Killua appeared in the living room and launched a yo-yo at him. "Shut up, you useless perverted old man."

Looking around and finding no other available projectiles, Ging had picked up a throw pillow from the sofa and chucked it at Killua's head.

Then he had to dodge the second yo-yo.

Killua sidestepped the pillow; it flew into the wall, the resulting impact shattering the glass of two picture frames. Whoops.

#

Killua dealt with assassins #2, #3, #4 and #5.

It wasn't out of altruism or fondness for Pariston or anything like that. Killua was bored, that was all. Gon had chosen this particular summer to go on the fitness binge of the decade. He'd installed a state-of-the-art gymnasium in the basement, with custom-made weight machines, cross trainers, Pilates balls, virtual personal trainers with motion tracking assistance, and a recovery sauna. Gon had already done ten thousand push-ups this morning. One of his goals for the month was to beat Killua's bench press.

Considering that Killua's bench press, performed under zetsu conditions, was _forty-two tons_, this could take Gon a while.

Killua had spent an hour video calling Alluka, who was on a school trip in the Hawiti Islands with her boyfriend (who had been permitted to accompany her there on pain of certain torture if Alluka so much as sustained a papercut injury; the rest, Nanika could take care of). When that conversation was concluded though, Gon was still training in the basement, and there was nothing to do.

So Killua went out in search of cake and candy.

Two of the hitmen were already lurking as he strolled out the driveway, the sensor gates recognising him and gliding open. Neither of them had approached the mansion yet.

Killua really wanted sugar, so he walked right past them and made a beeline for his favourite pâtisserie, located a convenient three blocks away. He ordered himself a gateau St. Honoré and a mocha topped with whipped cream and cinnamon (after photographing the cake and drink and uploading the evidence to Instapic; Alluka and Mito liked their food porn). After consuming both of them, he ate a nashi galette and five macarons.

Then he went down the road to buy bubble milk tea and taiyaki from their respective stalls; he knew both the vendors and they had his order in progress as soon as they sighted him.

Finally he was _almost_ full, so he bought a paper bag filled with chocolate chip cookies and headed home.

The hitmen had doubled in number in the ninety minutes since he'd left.

Assassin #4 was especially stupid, since he tried to attack Killua as he approached the front door, earning a dislocated hip and shoulder, and a bone-breaking knockout punch to his nose for his efforts.

#3 was a sniper, and chose that moment to attack; he'd obviously run out of patience, since it was a foolish move. The bullet clipped Killua's shoulder, but didn't do much damage given that Killua was using ken to fortify his aura.

The chocolate chip cookies. If this kept up, the cookies would be ruined.

Killua dashed inside and stuck the cookies in the pantry, then came back out.

Time to play.

#

A lesser man would have consigned Pariston's bloodied clothing to the dry cleaners, but Ging Freecss had attended two world-class training schools in handwashing laundry, namely, Whale Island and archaeological digs.

Ging hated buying new clothes. Everything in his wardrobe was years to decades old, except for gifts from Pariston. He didn't like doing laundry either, hence the half-hearted attempts at hobo chic, but he was _good_ at it when he had to be.

Pariston seemed to have made a point of soiling his clothes as badly as possible in his fight with the hitman. A glance at the white poplin shirt revealed it to be stained with grass, soil, blood, bile, vomit, more blood, burn marks, and damn it physical torture was one of the perversions Pariston _didn't_ happen to take particular pleasure in, which meant that the fight had only been this messy because Pariston wanted to give Ging a hard time.

The candy-striped apron and denim jeans were similarly defaced. The jeans were such a disaster that Ging was tempted to throw them out, but they were new and custom-fit and he enjoyed the way Pariston looked as if he'd been poured into them, long-legged and graceful like a magazine model.

There existed a terrible disjunction between Pariston's physical appearance and the way he was on the inside. By and large there was nothing to complain about when it came to Pariston's exterior.

Ging filled two plastic tubs and a plugged sink with water and stain removal agents (the jeans were black, the apron red and white, the shirt snow-white, so there wasn't much choice but to separate all of them), and put Pariston's clothes in to soak. In the meantime, Ging tackled the rest of the laundry.

Killua and Gon's things were mostly polyester or cotton and entirely machine-washable. Ditto Ging's own clothes.

The hot pink satin bedsheets that he and Pariston had ruined last night-

Well, at least they weren't torn, since Pariston would have taken that as an opportunity to buy even more opulent, colorful and blinding sheets. And they would manage in the washing machine. Cold rinse, delicates cycle.

Pariston peered into the laundry room. "Well met, Ser Knight. How fares your gallant battle against the forces of stain and dirt?"

Pariston had just showered. Blond hair, darkened by water, sat damp and curling, framing his clean-shaven face. His signature aftershave wafted through the air: peppercorns, vetiver, neroli. A white terrycloth bathrobe covered his form, belted loosely at the waist, leaving visible the skin covering his collarbones and sternum. Water droplets clung to the exposed parts of Pariston's body, some remaining stationary and gleaming in the sunlight, others shivering and then succumbing to gravity, trickling downwards.

Ging's quick perusal detected love bites, the faint lines of old scars, even the odd freckle; but no evidence that Pariston had so much as sustained a scratch during the encounter with his attacker in the vegetable patch.

Pity.

"You know," Pariston said conversationally, even though Ging had ignored his earlier question, "I always think it's a good sign when a man is comfortable enough with his masculinity that he doesn't mind stepping out of traditional gender roles. After all, such outdated notions lie at the core of the problems that hold us all back as a society. That's why I always put my hand up for extra cooking duties whenever I avail myself of Gon-kun's hospitality. Aside from the fact that Killua-kun is prone to seasoning his food with exquisite but deadly poisonous spices – placing us all at risk of gastroenteritis or worse, hallucinations, haemorrhagic shock and death, whenever he is rostered as chef – I also believe that it is important whenever one is in a flatmates situation, to contribute fully to the housekeeping, and to quash at every opportunity the aversion to so-called women's work that is absolutely unnatural but nevertheless instilled in boys from a young age-"

Three years ago, Ging had punched Pariston's jaw and broken it, entirely out of impulse. The blessed silence had been wonderful for all of ten minutes – the time it'd taken Pariston to summon a private ambulance to take him to the emergency department.

Before Pariston even reached hospital he'd already started updating Tweeter reporting his injury status, making liberal use of #domesticviolence and #gingfreecss hashtags.

Pariston had eventually deleted all his tweets three days later – but _not_ before screencaps of them (probably taken by Pariston himself) had been disseminated across multiple Hunter-only websites. Cleaning up the subsequent mess had been one of Ging's more disagreeable tasks of recent times; he now owed favours to both Piyon and Ickshonpe Katocha.

Even before that incident, Ging had always known that using physical force against Pariston was a fruitless enterprise. If it hadn't been for Ging's bad temper-

Ging pushed the start button on the washing machine. The sound of the running water was just loud enough to be offputting to Pariston, who was more than capable of drowning out competing noises with his elocution but preferred to speak without such obstacles, especially when the audience was as unappreciative as Ging was.

"I shall attend to other business matters then, since you are clearly preoccupied by the task of laundry," said Pariston. He offered Ging a smile with half-lidded eyes.

"You could go help Killua get rid of your assassins," Ging pointed out. Judging by the sounds, Killua had finished knocking all of them out; but taking them to the police wouldn't work. The Hunter Association would have to be contacted to come and arrest the would-be murderers.

"They are not my assassins. I disclaim all ownership of them," corrected Pariston. "Also, it's best to keep Killua-kun as busy as possible. He's a very difficult teenager to manage when he has excess energy to burn."

Ging had to admit that Pariston was right on the last point.

#

Gon finished his morning of training with a sixty-minute yoga session. Meleoron had spent six months last year in an ashram, practising vegetarianism and studying sacred texts; every now and then he posted Gon a DVD or pamphlet on yogic practice. Gon hadn't watched or read any of them, but he and Killua had taken up local fitness centre memberships when they moved into this house - and the yoga classes were the only ones they found useful. (The circuit training was too easy, as were the weights classes and the running groups. The dancesport classes might have been good for coordination but Killua flat out refused to attend.)

He completed the last of his sun salutations and settled into the corpse pose for relaxation.

After twenty minutes Gon opened his eyes. Every muscle in his body felt weightless and free. The notable exception was his stomach, which felt weightless and empty and rumbling.

He bounded up the stairs in search of food.

Last night's dinner had been whole roasted boar cooked over a fire pit; yesterday Ging had run two hundred kilometres to the closest forest authorised for recreational hunting, quickly and efficiently struck down the wild animal, and then flown back home on the back of a Dappled-Wing Giant Crane, carrying his prey with him.

It would have been nice if Ging had bothered to make a green salad, or maybe some baked potatoes to go with the meat, but they were all used to Ging's idea of cooking.

For today's lunch Pariston had turned the leftover roast boar into gigantic triple decker sandwiches, made with three separate types of bread, with generous helpings of meat in each layer. The top level was flavoured with pesto, the middle layer with avocado, the bottom with seeded mustard and alfafa sprouts.

Gon ate six sandwiches, more than anyone else. (Killua ate three, then had chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Ging arrived late, so there were only four sandwiches left for him. As usual, Pariston didn't eat very much.)

"How were those four assassins from just now?" Gon asked Killua.

Killua shrugged. "A bit stronger than the dude from this morning, but still kind of weak. I can't believe they call themselves professionals."

"Can I take the three that just arrived, then?"

Pariston was sipping at a cup of coffee, and his facial expression didn't change at all; but his gaze flickered from Ging to Killua and Gon and then back to Ging again.

Ging ignored everyone and kept chewing his food noisily.

"They're a bit better than the earlier lot," Killua warned. "We'd be better off teaming up against them."

Gon shook his head. "That's not fair, Killua. You always get all the fun. Let me see what I can do this time."

"I'm not cleaning up your mess if you make one."

"Yes, you would. You always do." Gon gave him a wide grin. "But I won't make a mess. We're not thirteen anymore."

Killua gave off a sigh. "I should punch you for that."

"You can punch me later," Gon agreed. "After I've dealt with these guys."

"Isn't young love sweet?" Pariston murmured to Ging. For some reason Pariston's words made Killua pause and then _blush_, which Gon thought was terribly cute.

He headed out to the backyard, which was huge. Besides the vegetable garden it also held fruit trees and tall oaks, conifers; a giant treehouse; a swimming pool and trampoline, and a couple of guesthouses where Leorio and Kurapika liked to stay when they came to visit. (Leorio didn't like Ging, and Kurapika didn't like Pariston; so this was the best arrangement.)

There was a grove in the center of the backyard where pine trees had been planted in a half-circle. Gon stood there and said, "Could the three of you come out please? I don't mean you any harm, and I don't think you mean me any harm."

No answer.

Well, it was a good opportunity to practice. Keeping his knees bent slightly, his arms in a ready posture, prepared to attack or defend at any moment, Gon concentrated on his aura and then spread it outwards.

His En still wasn't _great_; at a pinch he could manage a forty metre radius, but it would be enough to detect these three.

Below, in the ground.

Above, on the telephone wires.

To the west, behind the guesthouses.

Exposed now, they emerged from their hiding places. Two women, one man. Gon studied their features with a small shock of recognition – he didn't know any of them, but the odd mashup of insectoid and animal traits each of them displayed was unmistakable.

Chimera Ants.

"Pariston-san has really made someone mad this time, hasn't he?" Gon said.

The woman spoke. She was tall and beautiful, with silver hair falling across her shoulders like a curtain. Her face looked human, but her skin bore the color and texture of freshwater pearls. "We have no business or complaint with you, Gon Freecss. Step aside and let us deal with our prey."

Huh. "You know me?" he asked.

It was the other woman who answered – a girl, really, with a snout and fox ears and a sleek russet tail. "Everyone knows you. All of us know you. You're the boy who killed a royal guard. The boy who made an impossible promise, who was saved from an unbreakable curse by the power of love."

"We have no quarrel with you," emphasized the man.

Gon nodded. "I know. But I can't let you do what you want. Pariston-san is my friend."

"Then we'll have to kill you," said the silver-haired woman.

"That's no good." Gon shook his head. "Let's think of a way to solve this."

#

Killua, who was watching through the kitchen windows as he loaded the dishwasher, rolled his eyes. "And as usual. He thinks of the most troublesome method possible for dealing with the situation."

Ging was raiding the fridge for beer. They were always running out of beer, ever since Killua had developed a taste for it. Most days Ging could deal with Pariston sober with both eyes shut and one hand tied behind his back, but at times like these mild inebriation was a preferable state.

He finally found a bottle and used his bare fingers to twist off the steel cap, then took a long swig. "Pariston, what's the average number of hits taken out on you per year?"

Pariston was still at the dining table finishing off his coffee. "About seven, but as you would well know, the rate is highly variable. Why?"

"Well, for starters, I need some good reasons why trussing you up like a chicken and feeding you to the hounds baying for your blood _isn't_ the best possible solution right now."

Pariston shrugged; spread out his arms in a long elegant arc. "But Gon-kun's trying so hard."

"Tell me who's after you."

"Someone is always after me, Ging. I am an individual of many and varied interests, and extraordinary success in numerous ventures. Such superlative gifts as I possess can hardly all be bestowed upon one individual without causing resentment in many; furthermore, I'll admit that I have not always been blameless when it comes to giving due consideration to the sentiments of individuals who whether inadvertently or deliberately bar me from my goals."

"Answer the question."

"Was that a question? I thought it was a command. It could be any one of a thousand individuals. I don't keep track of such petty facts."

"You have a mind like a rotting labyrinth, Pariston Hill," said Ging, "and a life to match. But you're nothing if not organised. Who are your top ten suspects?"

Pariston went to the kitchen bench to pour himself more coffee. "My primary suspect is always you, Ging."

"I didn't-" began Ging, and then a memory flashed through him, of unlicensed pubs and homebrew and a negotiation with the Saheltan government over a heritage site that Pariston had gone out of his way to royally fuck up. "Actually-"

Pariston raised a brow. "Really, Ging, what a crude tactic. I'm disappointed."

"I was drunk," said Ging defensively.

"You know," Killua said conversationally, "sometimes hanging out with you two makes me feel better about all my Gon problems. Just saying."

Ging scowled at Killua. "Go out and tell the ant with the bear-face that the job is off. I'll still pay him the same amount, so long as he leaves us alone."

"What about the women?" asked Pariston, as Killua disappeared out the back door.

"Not mine."

"That leaves six assassins unaccounted for. Still rather the statistical anomaly."

"Which one was yours? The sniper?" Pariston gave a little nod. It went without saying that No. 2 on the suspect list of 'People Who Have Hired Someone to Kill Pariston Hill' was, invariably, Pariston himself.

Killua came back to report. "Bearface dude went away, but he says he'll be back if you don't pay him."

"I'll do it now." Ging looked around for his phone, unlocked it and started the wireless transfer. "I'm a man of my word. Who hired the women?"

"They said they were recruited through separate agencies. Could be the same employer, could be different. They're playing poker with Gon now. The stakes are Pariston's life, obviously."

"Should I be concerned?" asked Pariston.

"I wouldn't worry. The two people who taught Gon how to play cards are Hisoka and Ging."

Killua's cellphone rang; the ringtone was a sound like wind rushing through river reeds. Killua picked it up. "Dad?"

Ging looked across the kitchen and met Pariston's eyes. As usual they were dark and carefully blank; half a decade of practice, however, had given Ging ample opportunity to learn every shade and gradation of blankness Pariston's eyes displayed.

"How much time do you need?" asked Ging.

Pariston took off his apron – this one royal blue and monogrammed, decorated with little albino rats – and hung it on a peg next to the fridge. "As to the previous unexplained six failures, I can't say. It's possible someone simply put a bounty on my head, rather than employing specific hitmen. Zoldyck involvement is entirely different, however. I can only think of three people who'd have both the resources and the emotional investment to spend that much money on my demise. For instance, you possess the resources but lack the moral lassitude required."

Ging, who had been using the time Pariston spent talking to drink more beer, said: "Your death solves none of my problems. I thought we established that years ago."

"Well, that is also true." Pariston's smile curved upwards, wide and broad, but never reaching his eyes. "In any event, narrowing down the suspects is easy. Getting rid of the problem, however, isn't quite so straightforward."

Killua was finishing up his phone conversation. "Yeah, gotcha. See you in a bit." He hung up, casting a glare like black ice at Pariston. "Dad's going to be here in half an hour, and I'll stall him for fifteen minutes. That's all you've got, so make the most of it. Don't count on Gon interfering; if he does I'll knock him out and fly him to the next continent."

"I see. I suppose that's still a greater show of support than Ging is going to provide." Pariston heaved a sigh. "Let me get my laptop."

#

The birds were evacuating en masse.

Animals had always loved Gon (and Ging), which meant that hundreds of the creatures lived on the grounds of this house: sparrows, mynahs, dormice, squirrels, toads, garden snakes, fruit bats. Last spring a family of ducks had turned the swimming pool into a duck pond. In fact, it was still a duck pond right now.

Zoldycks weren't nearly as popular with animals. So it was pretty unsurprising that two Zoldycks, sitting cross-legged on the stone-tiled driveway facing each other, should emanate a threat capable of all but emptying the ecosystem of Gon's home.

"How's Mom?" asked Killua, as a pair of bunnies fled the compound in terror.

"She's doing well," answered Silva. "Kalluto hasn't quite grown out of his rebellious stage, so she is troubled by that, but the household has been very peaceful on the whole. May I ask how far you intend to go to defend your – friend's father's friend?"

Killua shrugged. "Say Dad, who do you think is stronger now, you or me?"

At first his father did not speak. They watched each other quietly; above them, the afternoon sun blazed down. To Killua, the air felt thick as blood, hot as molten rock.

Silva said: "I don't think you would want Gon's home to be destroyed."

Even speaking was difficult; the pressure was oppressive. "You're right. I don't."

They sat there, unmoving. Every moment seemed to stretch out, suspenseful and unendurable; it was as if time had slowed to standstill. Killua had promised fifteen minutes. Could he last fifteen minutes against this kind of intensity?

Finally, Silva said, "You're my son and I'm proud of you."

Behind Killua, the front door opened. It was Pariston, his smile indefatigable as ever. "Silva Zoldyck, I presume? I'm very sorry to tell you that your client is now entirely bankrupt and is very unlikely to be able to pay your fee."

The pressure on Killua eased as Silva's focus narrowed onto Pariston – who, Killua had to admit, was pretty amazing, because he walked right up to the Zoldyck family head as if it was the most natural thing in the world and handed Silva a tablet computer. Silva studied the screen.

"You're welcome to verify this with your own sources, of course," said Pariston, his voice quicksilver and blithe. "Alternately, feel free to look up the world news. The headlines should be everywhere within the next three minutes."

Silva pulled out his own phone and pressed a speed dial button. "Milluki? Can you check something for me?"

He disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived, leaving Killua sitting in the driveway, heart hammering and breath shallow, wondering if he'd ever truly grow up.

If he'd ever move beyond this.

A little later, Gon emerged from the backyard to say that he'd won the poker game and that he was inviting the two Chimera Ants to dinner.

Pariston would have to cook for six people, but _really_ all things considered, that was the least he could do.

#

Later, as they prepared to go to bed for the night, Pariston said to Ging: "By the way, I took the liberty this afternoon of contacting a number of Saheltan Congressmen with whom I've had mutually beneficial dealings in the past. If you check your email tomorrow, I think you'll find that your application to restore the Yorbian catacombs has made some positive progress."

"I see." Ging pulled on his pyjamas. "Thank you."

"Aren't you going to ask why?"

"I prefer conserving mental energy for thoughts that are actually useful."

"The reason is really quite transparent and simple." In the dim light of the bedside lamps, Pariston's eyes appeared hollow and black. "You were being boring, Ging – I mean a hired assassin, really?"

"People in glass houses." Ging yawned and rolled into bed. "That's crap anyway, you never find me boring."

"Don't I?"

"You don't."

"I suppose you're right," Pariston conceded, switching off the lights.

**END, A Day in the Life.**


End file.
